As someone who has never read The Hobbit and loved the LOTR movies, I don't really give a shiat. I think The Hobbit movies are worse than the LOTR movies, but they are on the whole very good so far, and I don't really have any issues with the pacing as a whole. For someone who doesn't know the story, it sure doesn't feel to me like they are stretching things.

The 2nd Hobbit movie, which I saw yesterday, was definitately better than the first, though. Very good fun. The only bad part I can think of is the last sequence in Erebor - too long, and the CGI wasn't very good.

I read The Hobbit in seventh or eighth grade. I have fond memories of that particular escape. Actually, Bilbo's reflection at the mouth of Smaug's lair has been one of the navigation tools in my life: he says something like "If I do this, everything else will be easy." I have said that to myself countless times over the last few decades. Challenge yourself or life will be challenging and all that stuff.

No way in hell would I ruin that corner of my memory with the chunky, swirling cinematic slumgullion that is a Peter Jackson film.

The barrel sequence was farking stupid and I question the intelligence of anyone that thinks differently. When the red bearded dwarf's barrel bounces out of the water and then takes out 10 orcs in a row before he sticks his arms out the side and becomes a whirling death machine AND then jumps in an unoccupied barrel(where did the extra come from) is probably the most idiotic thing since the 3rd Matrix

When Gandalf is facing "the darkness" And it forms into the eye of sauron, which then morphs into the armor shape, that then goes back to the eye. Why do we need that to pulse at us 5-6 times?

This movie needs an editor, someone to make it about an hour long, and then it'd be perfect. Basically get rid of anything that Bilbo isn't in.

Girion47:The barrel sequence was farking stupid and I question the intelligence of anyone that thinks differently. When the red bearded dwarf's barrel bounces out of the water and then takes out 10 orcs in a row before he sticks his arms out the side and becomes a whirling death machine AND then jumps in an unoccupied barrel(where did the extra come from) is probably the most idiotic thing since the 3rd Matrix

That was an incredibly fun and awesome sequence. Just perfectly well done by the filmmaking deal.

DamnYankees:As someone who has never read The Hobbit and loved the LOTR movies, I don't really give a shiat. I think The Hobbit movies are worse than the LOTR movies, but they are on the whole very good so far, and I don't really have any issues with the pacing as a whole. For someone who doesn't know the story, it sure doesn't feel to me like they are stretching things.

The 2nd Hobbit movie, which I saw yesterday, was definitately better than the first, though. Very good fun. The only bad part I can think of is the last sequence in Erebor - too long, and the CGI wasn't very good.

A lot of the CGI and such in this movie seems too long. The river-barrels sequence is too long. Erebor is too long. And they cut out interesting parts of the book, even though its only one book stretched over 3 movies.

The movie is still good, and I like the added bits, but I don't know why they needed to cut where they did and add where they did.

The barrel sequence was farking stupid and I question the intelligence of anyone that thinks differently. When the red bearded dwarf's barrel bounces out of the water and then takes out 10 orcs in a row before he sticks his arms out the side and becomes a whirling death machine AND then jumps in an unoccupied barrel(where did the extra come from) is probably the most idiotic thing since the 3rd Matrix

When Gandalf is facing "the darkness" And it forms into the eye of sauron, which then morphs into the armor shape, that then goes back to the eye. Why do we need that to pulse at us 5-6 times?

This movie needs an editor, someone to make it about an hour long, and then it'd be perfect. Basically get rid of anything that Bilbo isn't in.

SPOILERS ****************

Beorn's scene could have been hilarious but instead it was a stepping stone.

The fight with the spiders could have been a moment for Bilbo to shine, but rather it was far too rushed.

Tolkien had the barrel scene as a clever and stealthy way to escape to Lake Town. There's no rapids. There's no real danger except for the dwarves drowning in the leaky barrels and Bilbo being detected. Jackson makes it into a super-action sequence, because Hollywood Execs love that shiat.

August11:he says something like "If I do this, everything else will be easy." I have said that to myself countless times over the last few decades. Challenge yourself or life will be challenging and all that stuff.

But if you say that to yourself countless times, it is clearly a false statement.

It is better than the first but there is no reason for it to exist. The entire sequence of events could have been told in about an hour. Trim a bit from the first movie & put some there and the rest in the final movie.

Probably would have been pushing 3 hours for the theatrical release for each of the resulting 2 movies, but do you honestly think the fans will care?

Null Pointer:The entire sequence of events could have been told in about an hour.

I obviously can't speak to what's in the books or not, but this is absurd to me. It never felt like they lagged in any places, other than at the very end in Erebor. How can you possible fit this in an hour? Here's what they needed to put in:

You want to fit that into an hour? Are you insane? You can choose to cut some of these things entirely, I suppose, but if you want to keep the basic settings and beats of the plot, you can't just spend 7 minutes per place.

DamnYankees:August11: he says something like "If I do this, everything else will be easy." I have said that to myself countless times over the last few decades.

Seems like if you need to say it more than once, it stops being true.

You are correct. I was oversimplifying my use of it. Bilbo's attitude at the mouth of the lair has, though, been a consistent influence.

I ride my bike six miles to work and when I arrive, I don't take the elevator to the fifth floor, I carry my bike up the stairs. And it is an heavy, old, Trek--about thirtyfive pounds. I cannot tell you the dread I feel some mornings in the last mile to work. I so do not want to shoulder that damn bike. But I do it because the rest of the day seems like a walk in the park. Everyone always wonders why I am so happy mid-morning. It's because I'm done with that damn climb. It is a little Smaug's lair every morning.

DamnYankees:As someone who has never read The Hobbit and loved the LOTR movies, I don't really give a shiat. I think The Hobbit movies are worse than the LOTR movies, but they are on the whole very good so far, and I don't really have any issues with the pacing as a whole. For someone who doesn't know the story, it sure doesn't feel to me like they are stretching things.

The 2nd Hobbit movie, which I saw yesterday, was definitately better than the first, though. Very good fun. The only bad part I can think of is the last sequence in Erebor - too long, and the CGI wasn't very good.

The CGI wasn't great in the original movies. The sizes among all the main characters was tetchy every step of the way -- hobbits, dwarves, humans. They never got a good sense of establishing space and consistency and it bugged me to no end.

At least we'll always have the animated adaptation to watch. Sure, it's not the big live-action adaptation I'd like, but it did a much better job at keeping to the tone of the book than the new films.

I have yet to see the newest film. I'm probably going to check it out later this weeks. I thought the first one was a good movie, but not a good adaptation of the book. One thing I always loved about The Hobbit was that it was a fun adventure, as opposed to the world-ending danger and big drama of Lord of the Rings.

I'm conflicted on this one. One one hand, I despise the approach Jackson has taken with the Hobbit and consider it a great opportunity ruined (not to mention that it seems disrespectful to the source material). On the other hand, I'm a Wellingtonian with many friends and acquaintances who are indulging opportunities in the film business here, all thanks to Jackson.

Scorpitron is reduced to a thin red paste:The CGI wasn't great in the original movies. The sizes among all the main characters was tetchy every step of the way -- hobbits, dwarves, humans. They never got a good sense of establishing space and consistency and it bugged me to no end.

I don't agree with that - I think they've been consistently brilliant when it comes to size and scale. I was more referring to the interiors of Erebor and the molten gold. That looks fake to me.

The_Gallant_Gallstone:August11: he says something like "If I do this, everything else will be easy." I have said that to myself countless times over the last few decades. Challenge yourself or life will be challenging and all that stuff.

But if you say that to yourself countless times, it is clearly a false statement.

NeoCortex42:One thing I always loved about The Hobbit was that it was a fun adventure, as opposed to the world-ending danger and big drama of Lord of the Rings.

I feel like Jackson is stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one. On the one hand, he's already established the world and its general tone in the LOTR movies. It's hard to take that basic world and then change the. On the other hand, there are times in these movies where he has gone for a more fun tone - such as the barrel scene - and he gets flamed for it.

Trail of Dead:Below is a list of all films produced in the past 100 years that weren't primarily cash-grabs:

The profit motive plays an important role in popular art. The movie studios are businesses; we understand that.

The issue comes up when the integrity of the art (in this case, the integrity of the depiction) is compromised for financial considerations.

Tolkien wrote The Hobbit a certain and at a certain length to achieve a certain purpose. I'm not idealizing Tolkien; he wrote for money just as much for pleasure (he squabbles with his publisher endlessly in his correspondence).

The lengthening of the story into a co-eval of the Lord of the Rings accomplishes no legitimate artistic purpose. In the sense that it distorts the artistic intent of the original work in order to maximize revenue, The Hobbit films are more pernicious than most.

The_Gallant_Gallstone:Tolkien wrote The Hobbit a certain and at a certain length to achieve a certain purpose. I'm not idealizing Tolkien; he wrote for money just as much for pleasure (he squabbles with his publisher endlessly in his correspondence).

The lengthening of the story into a co-eval of the Lord of the Rings accomplishes no legitimate artistic purpose. In the sense that it distorts the artistic intent of the original work in order to maximize revenue, The Hobbit films are more pernicious than most.

To me, they seem to serve the purpose of telling the story at a proper pace. The Hobbit may be a small book, but it sure seems to have a lot of episodes and plot in it, from what I can tell.

You have to treat the audience like children, especially the book-clingers. They don't know what they really want even though they think they do. They want the book, but in the book Bard come out of nowhere. No one wants that. They think they want stealth barrels but actions barrels is what they need.

I applaud Jackson. This is his second child and he knows what needs to be done. Give these book whiners what they need. Make them eat their cinematic vegetables and take away the movie rotting candy like you did last time. (Bombadil, Shire scouring nonsense)

Girion47:When Gandalf is facing "the darkness" And it forms into the eye of sauron, which then morphs into the armor shape, that then goes back to the eye. Why do we need that to pulse at us 5-6 times?

I actually laughed in the theater during that moment. Reminded me of this.

DamnYankees:vonmatrices: The fight with the spiders could have been a moment for Bilbo to shine, but rather it was far too rushed.

Rushed? That scene lasted a while. And, to me at least, Bilbo did shine.

I didn't feel like that - sure Bilbo showed some martial prowess and we got an interesting moment where we see Bilbo being influenced by the Ring, but I think we missed out on him taunting the spiders and being brash, and generally saving the Dwarfs butts - instead he basically just frees them and the Dwarfs fight it out, and the Elves show up what seems like entirely too soon.

They should have just ditched Legolas and Thranduil and used the extra time to flesh out stuff that was actually in the book.

I did like their intrepretation of Mirkwood, and I liked the extra stuff involving Gandalf.

I thought Laketown was done well.

I'm not saying the movie was bad, but I just don't understand some of the choices they made.

DamnYankees:As someone who has never read The Hobbit and loved the LOTR movies, I don't really give a shiat. I think The Hobbit movies are worse than the LOTR movies, but they are on the whole very good so far, and I don't really have any issues with the pacing as a whole. For someone who doesn't know the story, it sure doesn't feel to me like they are stretching things.

The 2nd Hobbit movie, which I saw yesterday, was definitately better than the first, though. Very good fun. The only bad part I can think of is the last sequence in Erebor - too long, and the CGI wasn't very good.

Awesome. ^This is why they make three movies instead of one.

Making one would have ruined the story as it would be far too short and you would miss a ton of stuff from the book or waayyy too long. As in a 5 hour movie. Making 3 may be overdoing it, but THIS IS WHAT MOVIES ARE ABOUT!

"Oh I think we should only make a limited amount of content. We don't need to make money. No one wants three movies anyway"

Tolkien had the barrel scene as a clever and stealthy way to escape to Lake Town. There's no rapids. There's no real danger except for the dwarves drowning in the leaky barrels and Bilbo being detected. Jackson makes it into a super-action sequence, because Hollywood Execs love that shiat.

For me? The material was boring as shiat and I don't force myself to slog through things I don't enjoy just to obtain some imaginary punch card membership.

And I read a lot, in high school. Couple books a week usually. Even high fantasy. One of my favorites was the wheel of time books. So it wasn't length or complexity. Or even age really, I could read Scifi or fantasy from the 70s without blinking.

And it becomes even more clear when you had to omit quite a bit just to get LotR into 3 flicks. You aren't telling the Hobbit story here, you're shoveling your "vision" on top of it to clear 3 box office weekends, then dvd sales, then blu-ray sales, then uncut footage collector sets bla bla bla.

OSULugan:"We can probably stretch this into 3 movies if we add a bunch of this stuff not from the book. But, do you honestly think the fans will care?"

Honest question - do you really think Jackson thought "this is 2 movies, but we should make it three and add stuff to pad out the time"? Or do you think he thought "there's so much I want to put in here, and two movies just isn't enough, so I'd rather make three movies than hack out parts I love?"

You can criticize him for making the wrong decision, but it just seems incredibly unlikely to me he did it in bad faith. Dude already has enough money for a lifetime.

I have one question out for those of you that are very familiar with the various source material available:

Where is exactly to the "non"-Hobbit parts of the movie come from? I have read the Hobbit a few times, but not several. I don't recall much of the material surrounding Sauron / Necromancer being present, nor much of the development of the Goblins/Orcs as any sort of expansive characters with different personalities.

DamnYankees:Scorpitron is reduced to a thin red paste: The CGI wasn't great in the original movies. The sizes among all the main characters was tetchy every step of the way -- hobbits, dwarves, humans. They never got a good sense of establishing space and consistency and it bugged me to no end.

I don't agree with that - I think they've been consistently brilliant when it comes to size and scale. I was more referring to the interiors of Erebor and the molten gold. That looks fake to me.

No, you can see it in any interior. Gandalf will be massive compared to a Hobbit, then suddenly the Hobbit will be half his size. They did a lousy job with it across the movies.

DamnYankees:You can criticize him for making the wrong decision, but it just seems incredibly unlikely to me he did it in bad faith. Dude already has enough money for a lifetime.

As far as the "enough money for a lifetime" bit, the same thing could be said for George Lucas. Maybe Lucas and Jackson are operating on good faith but have lost all sense of that artistic proportion that helped them achieve fame in the first place.

In Jackson's case, I suspect that (given the success of the Lord of the Rings movie) he began to see himself as Tolkien's collaborator across the generations, with his revisions constituting a "modernization" like you see in those inferior "contemporary" Bibles.

RyansPrivates:I have one question out for those of you that are very familiar with the various source material available:

Where is exactly to the "non"-Hobbit parts of the movie come from? I have read the Hobbit a few times, but not several. I don't recall much of the material surrounding Sauron / Necromancer being present, nor much of the development of the Goblins/Orcs as any sort of expansive characters with different personalities.

Trail of Dead:Below is a list of all films produced in the past 100 years that weren't primarily cash-grabs:

What you say is true as far as it goes, but there are degrees: some cash grabs are more crass than others. Splitting a single-volume work into two is a particularly crass type, and to split it into three is beyond the pale, especially when you then go and add filler subplots to pad it out to a three-film length.